


Alone

by Tales_Unique



Series: Tales of Death [3]
Category: Darksiders (Video Games)
Genre: Darksiders - Freeform, Darksiders Imagine, Darksiders Imagines, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-04
Updated: 2018-12-04
Packaged: 2019-09-07 11:53:23
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,553
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16853524
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Tales_Unique/pseuds/Tales_Unique





	Alone

Sitting amid the ruins of The Weeping Crag, Death laments his new found solitude. It was the irony with which his last encounter with his companion took place around; the topic of  **death** itself. The rushing water lulls his mind into the bittersweet memory, and while he tries to focus on the details of her face he can’t help but hear the sharpness of her raised voice and the sting of her enraged gaze when he closes his eyes.

* * *

“Death,” she hisses, a scowl coming to her lips.

The expression grows sourer when he chooses to ignore, continuing along the stone wall, eyes focused upon the path ahead of them.

“ _Death_!” A sudden, sharp force halts him in wake of her yelling his name, furious energy blocking him from proceeding any further along the path.

 **Witches** , he seethes silently to himself as he turns his head to glare at her. It has become a frequent thing for her to lash out, not with words or violence but with her magic, when enraged. And he had started to notice that, around this topic in particular, she was becoming more furious by the day.  
Is it so hard to comprehend that he, the Pale Rider, wouldn’t want to talk about her fragile mortality and the inevitability of her demise? Clearly, he concludes, it is, since she is determined to pester him with talks of her own mortality whenever the chance arises.

“I don’t have the time nor patience for your whining!” He growls lowly to her, smouldering eyes narrowed at her from behind the cracked bone of his mask. This earns him another harsh jolt from the force of her still temperamental power, vexing the Rider further. “I will not indulge your morbid talk,” he continues as he turns to face her fully. She stands firm in the face of his own rage, daring him to challenge her further, but he denies her despite being disgruntled by the act; it’s what she wants him to do.

Yet, unlike all the other times, she doesn’t recoil back and begin to sulk and allow them to continue on their way. Nay, this time she takes steps forward until she’s toe-to-toe with him, glaring as fiercely as she can with eyes that remind him of the bark of trees in Spring; a beautiful blend of green and hazel that, for a moment, take his breath away.  
The illusion shatters quickly though and the unpleasant reality makes itself known again in the form of her verbal onslaught.

“ _Whining_?” She snaps at him, pointing a finger squarely at him, building herself up for the attack. “Oh, so wanting talk about something that’s very real constitutes as _whining_ now, huh?” The sarcasm drips from her words and Death snorts dryly at the role reversal they have undertaken. In truth it would have excited him to see such a biting tongue come forth from her if it hadn’t been directed at him during such a tense time and in regards to a very trying topic.

With a frustrated sigh the Rider shakes his head, no more contented to be in this situation as she is to have to argue it for the umpteenth time. “Yes, **whining** ,” he repeats, voice pointed, “how many times must I repeat that I don’t wish to speak of this before you’ll let it rest?” He asks, throwing his hands up in irritation at her.  
It’s moments like these that remind him of his lack of patience towards others, and although he has come to cherish the time they share together he finds that these moments are beginning to make him resent having tolerated her at all.

* * *

 **Selfish** , he thinks now, as he lowers his head in shame,  **foolish** , he berates himself, for having believed that forcing the issue aside would make it cease to exist; all it succeeded in doing was making him a  **coward**.

* * *

“I’m not dropping it, Death! We  _have_  to talk about this!” Still she persists with her argument and it would have grated on his nerves if he had any left for her to attack. For the moment he’s employing the tactic of ignoring her to see if that will cause her to buckle, but his impatience and frustration win and in an instant he looms over her, hardened to the look of momentary shock he witnesses on her face as a claw threateningly points her way.

The actions succeed in silencing her, for now.

“You walk a dangerous path,  **Human** ,” he spits, words venomous, and even he’s distantly alarmed at how quickly he’s able to turn on her the moment she’s no longer compliant. “I suggest you keep your mouth shut,” he continues, voice dangerously low, “and stop being such a brat!” It doesn’t go amiss, the look of hurt that flashes in her brilliant eyes, but Death coldly turns away as though she is no more than the water or the stone before him. For a moment she’s stunned, mouth slightly ajar, and it’s only when he’s a number of steps away that she realizes she’s crying and her rage burns anew, the fires within now fuelled by her sadness at being treated like nothing.

With a flick of her wrist she pulls pieces of crumbling rock towards his path, slams them to the ground mere inches from his feet, causing him to halt mid step and tilt his head towards her. Although she tries to stop the burning tears from falling they make warm, wet trails down her cheeks regardless, and she’s livid that he’s brought her to this; to use her still forming magic against him, just so she can _speak_ to him!

“H-how can you treat me like this?” Come her heartbroken cries, a hand coming to wipe at her face, “after all I’ve given you!”

As she stands, chest heaving with barely contained sobs, Death turns so he can regard her fully again. There’s no beauty here, he decides, though in retrospect he only made the choice to as to make the words more palpable on his tongue. He then scoffs at her statement, a venomous, sinister sound, before replying.

“All  **you’ve**  given  **me**? You must be joking!” He laughs anew, shaking his head while motioning to her. “What could a pathetic mortal witch possibly have given me, one of the Four Horsemen?” The words are bitter, laced with disgust, as he strides to where she stands, wilted and so close to breaking. Each word he says is harder than any hit she’s taken, and she’s taken a few in her time in this violent new world, but he doesn’t seem content to leave her where she stands.

He continues to move the figurative blade, taunting her with its edge but not dealing the final, deadly, blow. “Oh, that’s right,” he speaks with illumination before he looks deeply into her eyes, an unforgiving gaze peering down at her, “ **nothing**.”

There is it, the deadly strike.

Her eyes widen as she stares at him in a mixture of horror and betrayal. She has been teetering upon the precipice of losing herself in the turmoil of her emotions, but in an instant he’s displaced her and she’s hurtling towards the darkness that his awful words have caused within her. The Horsemen expects a volatile response of magic from her and even goes as far as to stiffen, brace for impact, but he surprised and somewhat curious when her head tips downwards.

In her silence she looks almost solemn, but Death knows that she is nothing more than a shattered, broken creature within.

There’s nothing, not a sound, from her for a several long, arduous moments, and the bravado that Death has concocted begins to retreat into wariness. What manner of tempestuous chaos is rampant inside her head, brewed to instability by his biting words? He’s about to probe her for answers to these questions when he hears her take in a long, deep breath, exhaling it just as slowly, calmly; coldly even. This action alone is enough to unsettle the Rider; she’s never so reserved when mere minutes before they were in the middle of a heated argument. 

Perhaps this is the moment where he’s gone too far? The Horseman wants to scoff at the notion, but something disquiet within him stirs and forces him to quell the impulse, and he favours instead for merely observing her. Those beautiful irises of Spring trees glisten with tears, tears **he’s** caused, and yet she looks at him unfeeling, an inscrutable look upon her face.

“I’m… _nothing_ , to you?” Comes her quiet, even voice, and Death simply stares at her for a moment, blindsided by the listlessness in her voice. Gone is the spirited young woman he had first glimpsed, buried is the fiery, raging witch whom he’d quarreled with mere moments before, and suddenly he's unsure of his place.

“Eleanor, I…” He calls her name weakly, her  **given**  name, and it becomes like lead on his tongue; heavy and uncomfortable. Her very name is repulsed by him now and it makes this known when he dares speak it to her. His advance falters before he has the time to register his own movement, though hers don’t. He watches, rooted to his spot, as she takes a step back from him, slow and deliberate.

“If I’m nothing to you then it doesn’t really matter about the end then, does it?” She muses softly, resigned, and a feeling of dread suddenly overpowers him and he rushing forward to catch her before she can leave him. As he reaches out to grasp her arm he feels a rush of wind knock him back, though it’s not the natural breeze that gently rustles the grass about them.

“Stop this foolishness!” Death commands her fiercely, though his voice holds a desperate, almost frantic, edge to it. If she is to flee from him now, in her current agitated state, then she will surely put herself in harm’s way. Despite his earlier biting words this is a fate he refuses to see befall her. Yet, with her magic acting on her erratic impulses as it closes in around him and pins him there, he’s helpless to stop her.

“Goodbye Death,” comes her gentle whisper, voice wavering before she turns and runs.

* * *

Deaths hands ball into fists as he lingers on the last words she spoke to him, so tight he feels the warmth of blood between his fingers; her trust in him shattered by his own impudence. Had this always been inside him? He wonders this and growls to himself; of  **course**  it had. No one could succeed in erasing their very nature, they could only hide it deep within and pray it would never to rise to the surface, and in that he had  **failed**.

* * *

It feels like eternity has passed when he finally is released from the confines of her magic, when in reality it was only several minutes or so. It was all so she could cover more ground without his interference, yet she knows that Death will soon be upon her from the almighty, pained roar she hears not too far from her location. The action causes her to quicken her pace, fearing that he may capture her should she stop, looking back with wide eyes while she rushes towards her impending fate.

Suddenly, startlingly, free of the magic he stumbles and sways, having driven himself to minor exhaustion from the efforts he exerted trying to break free, but all this pails in wake of the pain he feels at losing her. The wrath builds within him and in a flurry of dark, cold magic he becomes the Reaper that dwells within and uses such a monstrous form to tears and rip and crush any obstacles that lay in his path.

In the turmoil of emotion that boils within him his goal is singular;  **to find her**.

And find her, he  **does**.

He can smell the metallic tinge upon the air before anything else and this alone causes his mind to race with frantic thoughts as he hurries to the edge of the ruin, disturbing the small, stagnant pools of water that linger between displaced stonework. Looking over the edge he sees the cause of the broken ledge and feels the weight of his regret force him to his knees as he reverts back to his original state.

There, amid scattered rubble, she lays where she fell. If not for the sight of a corpse being familiar to the Horseman he would have believed her to be sleeping from how she was situated. Amid the grass and wildflowers, now stained red he sees as he slowly descends to her side, she has her arms positioned up about her head, like she had simply flopped backwards in order to gaze up at the sky. Her eyes, still fresh in their beautiful colour, glitter in the soft light with the remnants of tears and Death frowns beneath his mask as he kneels down beside her.

Being this close to her now he sees that her skin, still somewhat warm to the touch, has begun to pale, and a small trickle of blood escapes her soft lips as they rest slightly open, trailing across her smooth cheek towards the ground. With tentative movements Death lifts his hand to gently brush a stray lock of hair from her face, his sadness torturing him anew as he simply stares at her still face. No living emotion is portrayed upon her face; she merely gazes heavenward with an expression of passiveness.

This causes his pain to worsen for she looks so serene, so contented, which he knows was not the case in those last moments that she were alive.

With his hand he finally commits himself to confronting the truth, laying it tentatively over her chest. He registers no heart beat beneath his fingers, no rise or fall of breath against his palm, just the feel of her body, unmoving; her light is extinguished, her spirit is no longer one with her body.

“I’m sorry, Eleanor,” Death murmurs as he slowly heaves himself to his feet, forcing himself to look at her, to commit her lasting image to memory, so that he would always know why the guilt ate at him so mercilessly ―  so he would remember what he had  **done**.

* * *

The lasting image of his beloved drifts within his mind and Death feels his tight grip slacken, his body weak in the face of his regrets. Of all the lives he has taken, both by his own hand and through the manipulation of others, she’s the one that tortures him the cruellest because it was  **avoidable**.  
He had the  **choice**  when it came to her, and he chose incorrectly and it ended catastrophically.  
He continues to sit in self-isolation, unable to abandon the place of her death, at least for the moment, for he holds the morbid hope she may yet raise from the ground anew and come to him with arms outstretched, beckoning him closer. He then laughs bitterly to himself for he knows this hope to be false and knows that nothing he can do or say, no matter the power he wields, can bring her back from the void in which he cast her to.


End file.
